Meet Mark

Let me introduce myself. My name is Mark Sisson. I’m 63 years young. I live and work in Malibu, California. In a past life I was a professional marathoner and triathlete. Now my life goal is to help 100 million people get healthy. I started this blog in 2006 to empower people to take full responsibility for their own health and enjoyment of life by investigating, discussing, and critically rethinking everything we’ve assumed to be true about health and wellness...

Instant Pot Garlic and Ginger Short Ribs with Sweet Potatoes

The combination of bone broth, coconut aminos, fish sauce and balsamic vinegar makes such an incredible braising sauce for meat, it’s easy to imagine using the sauce for more than just short ribs. Then again, these short ribs are so good and so easy to make, why bother changing up this recipe at all?

An Instant Pot comes to the rescue again, making the meat fall-off-the-bone tender in 35 minutes flat. The braising sauce, plus garlic and ginger, impart rich umami flavor. Savory, sweet, salty and funky flavors are all there in perfect balance. These Instant Pot short ribs really are irresistible.

Here, they’re served with baked Japanese sweet potatoes, which taste really good with the meaty, salty ribs (although any type of sweet potato or yam will do). Steamed broccoli or sautéed greens like spinach and bok choy will round out this meal perfectly.

Servings: 4 to 6

Time in the Kitchen: 30 minutes hands-on, plus 1 hour for both ribs and sweet potatoes to cook

Scrub sweet potatoes clean, poke holes in the potatoes with a fork. Roast on a baking sheet for 1 hour, or until potatoes are soft when pierced.

While the sweet potatoes bake, season the short ribs with salt.

Program an Instant pot to sauté. Heat red palm oil in the Instant Pot insert. Add the ribs in batches, searing until browned on all sides. Transfer browned ribs to a plate.

If there is more than 2 tablespoons/30 ml oil left in the Instant Pot, pour oil off until only about 2 tablespoons remain. Add onion and cook until soft, 5 minutes, then add garlic and ginger. Cook 1 to 2 minutes more, then add bone broth, coconut aminos, fish sauce and balsamic vinegar.

Cover and cook 35 minutes on high pressure. Manually release pressure. Take out ribs and simmer sauce 3 to 5 minutes (using sauté function) to thicken.

Serve ribs with sauce spooned on top – the sauce is really flavorful but can be quite salty, so use sparingly. Serve baked sweet potatoes on the side with butter.

I’m an instant pot user, but quite used to cooking short ribs in the oven. I would suggest that you do everything up until the “cook in instant pot” part of the recipe. Instead, put the short ribs and sauce in a roaster, in the oven at 250* for 4-5 hours.

I use cast iron pot but any oven safe pot will do; just make sure to cover the meat tightly with baking paper, to prevent steam from escaping. 3-4 hr will do it depending on the quality of the meat. At the end of cooking, I uncover the pot, turn the top grill and crisp the meat and fat. If there are any leftovers, I slice them thin like bacon, sear them in a very hot pan and eat them for breakfast or launch. You have to try it!

Mark, from the looks of it, the meat in the photo doesn’t look like it has much fat. Did you trim it?

The recipe says, “the sauce is really flavorful but can be quite salty…”

Wouldn’t it be a better idea to use less salt in the first place? Two teaspoons is actually quite a lot, plus the coconut aminos are salty too, as might be the bone broth. Salt is cumulative and can easily make a dish inedible. Just my two cents, but I’d cut way back on the coconut aminos and almost eliminate any added salt.

Made this tonight with boneless short ribs and it was fantastic! Followed everything exactly and it was delicious. I made the sweet potato in my air fryer and it only took 35 minutes and came out perfectly cooked. Poured the reduced sauce over the sweet potato and the flavor combination was a perfect match.